Can’t Hardly Wait: Dave Grohl and his Foo Fighters will invade the Pepsi Center this weekend

Foo Fighters will play the Pepsi Center on Sunday. Photo by Amanda Schwab, AP.

Foo Fighters are one of the biggest rock bands in the world. Whether you think that’s a good or bad thing, it’s hard not to find Foos frontman Dave Grohl completely refreshing — yes, in a Mentos kinda way.

As we look forward to the band’s Mile High return — they headline the Pepsi Center on Sunday — we look back a little at the band’s past. Remember this gig, when they took over a garage outside the Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons earlier this year?

That was a good time, indeed. And what about the band’s early days in the mid-’90s, before they completely reformed themselves as modern rock radio’s somewhat-bland posterboys? That eponymous debut was so fun and simple — and great. And with the follow-up, “The Colour and the Shape,” remember how understated and pretty “Everlong” was — yet how dumbed-down “Hero” sounded? Sadly it was a signal of what was to come.

Ah, the good old days.

Cage the Elephant and Mariachi El Bronx open the show on Sunday at the Pepsi Center. Tickets are still available here.

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Ricardo Baca is the founder and executive editor of Reverb, the co-founder of The UMS and an award-winning critic and journalist at The Denver Post.